LORD, CHANGE ME? Part 1

Lord, give me:

The serenity to accept the person I cannot change,

The courage to change the person I can,

And the wisdom to know it’s me!

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

Matthew 7:3

I used to think my relationship with my mom would improve if only she would change!

I mentioned in my last post (To Love Me is to Know Me) that we are “hardwired” to have particular emotional needs that must be met if we are to grow into mature adults. I also mentioned that these emotional needs were missing in my years of growing up, because my mom and dad couldn’t give me what they didn’t have themselves.

It was no secret that my mom and I did not have the best relationship.  We didn’t hate each other, but we experienced great difficulty in communicating and understanding one another.  We just couldn’t connect, no matter how we tried.  This seemed crazy to people outside our family who knew my mom. To them, she was a warm, caring person who loved people and made friends easily.  In our home growing up, not so much.  She was short-tempered, impatient, and always distracted as she dealt with the effects of my dad’s alcoholism. One time, someone told my brothers and me that my mom was always the most kind and caring person in the room.  My brothers and I looked at one another; then one brother said, “I must have always been in another room.”

To others, Mom always showed her finest qualities, which were genuine.  It’s just that at home, things were very different.  I longed to know my mom at her finest, but she didn’t share that part of herself with me.  She would tell others that she found me very difficult to get along with.  I once overheard her on the phone saying how much more she enjoyed being with my older sister than with me.  She said she always had to walk on eggshells around me because I was so angry all the time.  That crushed me.  What does that say about a daughter when her own mother doesn’t like her?

And so it went for years and years.  I had little hope of ever having a loving mother-daughter relationship.

I saw my friends’ relationships with their moms, and I didn’t understand why I couldn’t have that with my own mom.  I continued to think that if only Mom would change, then everything would be better.  It never occurred to me that I should be the one to change—after all, she was the mother, and she should change.  (I confess my logic wasn’t necessarily on target!) 

One day I heard in a sermon that no matter what age we are, we are supposed to honor our fathers and mothers.  I was immediately convicted.  I knew my behavior did not honor my mother, particularly when angry with her.  But how was I supposed to honor her when we could not get along?  I was stumped.  So I prayed, “Okay, Lord, I’ll work at honoring Mom, but I need help.  Please help me honor my mom from my heart.”

My prayer was not answered right away, but I kept on praying.  And praying and praying.

I tried behaving differently toward Mom—acting more friendly, watching my temper, being more grateful.  But I observed no change in my mom or our relationship.  Or in me, for that matter.  All my efforts were quite strained.  I was desperate for my mom to show love for me, so I would earnestly pray for that.   Then it occurred to me—Mom probably wanted me to show love for her, which I wasn’t doing yet.  All my efforts to improve were not coming from my heart.  So my prayer changed to, “Father, please give me a heart overflowing with love for my mom.”

I started talking to my mom about my faith in Jesus Christ, but she wasn’t interested.

It hurt that she didn’t want me to talk about my faith, and eventually, I stopped trying.  But I learned later that two of my brothers had also been talking to Mom about Jesus, and one day they told me that she had accepted Jesus as her Savior and Lord!  One brother began reading to her from the Bible whenever he visited her, and another other brother made sure he prayed with her on his daily visits.  Unknown to me, he and my mom began praying for the healing of our relationship. So while I was praying for help to love Mom, she was praying for help to love me! We were on track for a miracle!

I’ll share the rest of the story with you in the next post, so stay tuned!